Harry's Big Brother
by Lucillia
Summary: When James and Lily visit a fertility clinic in 1979 in order to help nature take its course, they end up bringing a certain eleven year-old boy home with them for the Summer. As a result, Harry ends up with a "Big Brother" who despite being a muggle could potentially make Voldemort look like an abject failure.
1. Chapter 1

Dr. Parker sighed.

There were days that he fully regretted getting that map of the entire human genome off of that alien, and today was shaping up to be one of them. If the Singhs hadn't up and died after naming him their child's guardian - him out of the entire team of scientists, him who least liked children - things wouldn't be nearly as stressful as they were at the moment. At eleven years old, Khan was a bit old to claim as an example of his work despite the fact that he had been one of the main members of the group that had created the boy and a number of others like him, because he and the others hadn't published their findings out of fear of legal retaliation before the law finally plodded along far enough to catch up to the advancements they'd pioneered. Officially, the first test-tube baby was younger than Khan who had been created because the Singhs had Money with a capital M and had been willing to bankroll the entire project so long as they gave them the one thing their money had so far been unable to buy, a child of their own.

A superior child of their own.

After the couple that had bankrolled the project that had produced about a hundred children had died under somewhat mysterious circumstances, he had been stuck with that child, that child whose eyes seemed to say "Someday soon Doctor, it'll be your turn..."

He was planning on dumping the brat at Oxford at the earliest available opportunity. Unfortunately, the new term didn't begin for another couple of months, and Oxford wasn't the type of place that one could show up at mid-term even it it weren't currently the Long Vacation no matter how much money you had or how powerful your friends were. He knew, he'd tried dumping Khan there twice before the Trinity term had ended.

The reason he was sighing at the moment was that rather than quietly reading like he usually did, the boy was sneaking peeks over his history book at today's rather routine consult, obviously planning something involving the pair who had come to him because the husband had an abysmally low sperm count and enough money to get through the front door. The last time the boy had gotten into mischief, he'd damn near been sued, and a particularly influential client had sworn never to darken his doorstep again. A particularly influential client who had influential friends with money.

The Potters - who were much younger than his usual clients - both looked over and smiled at Khan upon entering the waiting room of his somewhat posh fertility clinic. He knew exactly why, as the boy was the exceedingly handsome sort that would grow up to be a heartbreaker, and rather exotic in appearance to boot. Fortunately, they hadn't noticed that Khan had been glancing at them as if they were bugs under a microscope for the most part, as he didn't want his clients to become unsettled and go elsewhere as Lord and Lady ******* had. Aside from the fact that he needed clients in order to gain funds for his research, he was also close to a breakthrough that would hopefully create a new generation of Augments who wouldn't be born with that thrice-damned arrogance that plagued Khan and his ilk.

"This seems like a rather boring place to keep a kid cooped up for the Summer." James Potter said when he called the man back for the examination that was necessary for him to form his own opinion of the case and develop an effective plan for treatment that would result in the birth of the healthy offspring the young man who was less than a decade older than his ward seemed to dearly want.

"It is. Unfortunately, I can't send him elsewhere since I have nobody who can watch him." he replied with a sigh, wishing once more that that was not the case, but none of the women on the team who matched his intellect had been interested in romance, and his naturally abrasive personality had driven everyone else away long ago.

Potter - who couldn't have been older than twenty if that - gave him a sympathetic smile, a smile that seemed to say that he almost pitied him.

"I'd offer to bring him home with me and Lily if I thought you'd take me up on it. I know that look of mischief well," Potter said with a nostalgic expression that was out of place on such a young face. "Seeing as I wore something similar until...circumstances forced me to grow up."

Somehow, he doubted it since - from the looks of things - Khan had looked more as if he were trying to figure out how to best dissect Potter and his wife. If Potter had worn such a look during his youth, he would have to border on...

A brief fantasy of himself chucking a bit of dirt on a small coffin as he said "And they seemed to be such nice people..." intruded, and at that moment, considering how trying Khan had been since he'd moved in with him at his parents' request, he actually considered it.

"You know, if I knew you any better than I did, I'd take you up on it." he replied as reality reared its ugly head.

Despite the fact that he viewed Khan who was completely uncontrollable as a failure didn't mean the others did, and they'd have his hide if something were to happen with the boy who would likely prove the efficacy of their scientifically created "Master Race" by trying to rule the world, especially since one of the other scientists who'd occasionally tutored the boy had been feeding the brat ideas that he'd picked up in Nazi Germany. Of course that scientist was also the reason at least half of the Augments looked more as if they followed along the Aryan ideal than anything else with Khan being both the first and the token Indian to boot.

"It's just as well." Potter replied. "My Lily-flower would kill me if I did something like that without consulting her first."

That probably wouldn't have been the end of it if Mrs. Potter hadn't struck up a conversation with a certain charismatic brat. The woman's maternal instincts had apparently kicked in during the conversation that had started off with the War of the Roses and meandered from there. A discussion with her had oddly enough revealed that their mothers were something to the order of third cousins twice removed, providing him with the perfect excuse to foist a certain genetic experiment off on a pair of total strangers who apparently lived in a microscopically small town in the West Country.

After the consultation had ended for the day and certain matters had been settled, he had fought to keep the grin off of his face as he told Khan to go back to the flat and pack his things because he'd be moving in with Mr. and Mrs. Potter until school started.


	2. Chapter 2

Khan had known from day one that Dr. Parker didn't like him - never had, and never would - and, it wasn't just the man's anti-social nature that accounted for this. The man regarded him as a failure because he couldn't be _controlled._ But, who would want to be controlled by a man whose intelligence they would soon outstrip if they didn't already?

Things had been easier back in India. Much nicer, and a great deal warmer too. But, someone had killed his parents in a manner he had yet to discern as there hadn't been a single mark on their bodies, and he'd been forced to move to Chilly Old England as a result.

Most of the reason he disliked England however was the company. For the most part, the only people he had to interact with were Parker and his clients since all of the other Augments who hadn't had as much work put into them as he'd had put into him had been scattered across Europe. Of those clients, Mr. and Mrs. Potter with whom he'd be staying despite the fact that they'd apparently only met Dr. Parker that day were the most interesting, and not because they were a good decade or more younger than the people who usually frequented the clinic that was their last hope for bearing inferior offspring. There was just something about the both of them that seemed...off.

As he went to catch the bus back to Dr. Parker's well appointed flat so he could grab his stuff as he'd been ordered to since his guardian had decided to foist him off on a pair of total strangers, he noticed the Potters having a hushed conversation in front of their car before splitting up, the wife grabbing the keys to the vehicle out of her handbag and opening the driver's side door, and the husband walking off to only the gods knew where. As he stood at the bus stop, Mrs. Potter got into the antique car that was in near pristine condition that belonged to the Potter couple who were becoming more and more of an anomaly the longer he watched them, started it up, and pulled up next to him.

"Hop in." she said as she opened the passenger side door.

"Why should I?" he asked mostly out of pique as he tried to find a logical reason for why not to do so despite his ingrained habit of not accepting rides from strangers.

"Because it'll save you the cost of bus fare." replied the rather young Mrs. Potter whom he'd learned from the conversation he'd had with her earlier was nineteen just like her husband.

Sighing, he climbed into the vehicle that looked more like it belonged in a museum than it did on the road. The trip back to Parker's flat was mostly silent due to the awkwardness of the situation. He'd said just about everything he had to say to Mrs. Potter back in the waiting room as they waited for her husband's examination to be finished. Now however, he was going to be forced to further interact with the woman who was reasonably intelligent if oddly educated for a bog standard human being because Dr. Parker had broken any number of social conventions and given him to her and her husband to care for until it was time for him to go to Oxford, which he was not particularly looking forward to attending due to the age gap between him and the normal students which was sure to cause any amount of friction due to his classmates' inevitable attempts to "Put him in his place.".

Fortunately, there was going to be a puzzle for him to solve where he was going, and that puzzle was the Potters themselves. Unfortunately, solving that puzzle wouldn't take more than a day or two.

* * *

James knew that what he and Lily did was impulsive as hell, but after meeting Dr. Parker face to face, Lily couldn't leave that poor boy with that dreadful man for another minute even with the war on and he agreed with her. The environment that kid was stuck in was completely detrimental to that boy's mental wellbeing. If worse came to worse however, they could send the boy to Cokeworth to be doted upon by Lily's mother who'd been rather lonely since the house had emptied out following Lily's and Petunia's marriages and Mr. Evans's death from Cancer last January. Mr. Evans could have survived, but he'd refused the magical treatment that had been offered to him since he found the standard method of curing the disease to be "Barbaric". Of course, transferring terminal illnesses to convicted criminals who'd received The Kiss would seem barbaric to someone who was raised in the muggle world, but since the lights were out and nobody was home, it was more of an act of mercy than anything considering the fact that they could go on for decades after that point since killing their bodies after The Kiss was received was illegal due to some moralistic bullshit or other.

Thanks to his opening his big mouth, and Lily deciding that anywhere was better than that dull office where there was nothing for that exceedingly bright child to do all day but read and plot mischief in order to relieve the unendurable boredom he was surely suffering through, they were going to have to figure out how to bring the boy home with them without breaking the statute of secrecy. The fact that he, Lily, Moony, and Wormtail were currently living with Padfoot in the cottage in Godric's Hollow that the white sheep of the Black family had bought with the money his uncle Alphie had left him since all of them had decided to give their parents some breathing space was going to make things a bit difficult, especially since he and Lily hadn't consulted their housemates beforehand. Perhaps if he phrased things so that living as muggles until the boy left for the Michaelmas term which began in October was a grand joke of some sort...

Being as bright and clever as the Marauders were, it was potentially possible to pull it off without needing to Obliviate the boy if they worked at it. All of them had some degree of familiarity with both muggle gadgets and muggle culture, and none of them were dumb as the dimmest Lumos in their group was merely slightly above average. The fact that Lily had arranged most of the cottage's furnishings when they'd moved in following the wedding that had come close on the heels of their graduation from Hogwarts since Black was absolute pants at interior design would also help as well seeing as the woman had gone out and purchased several gadgets including a waffle iron and a television which seemed to be a requirement for every muggle home these days.

Most people tended to write him and the other Marauders off without even once realizing that if they'd taken a closer look they would have noticed that there were Potions, Charms, and Transfiguration prodigies that could potentially put the most touted amongst the student populations of several schools to shame in their midst. There was a reason why Hogwarts's most brilliant students had a tendency to become Pranksters or budding Dark Lords, and that reason was that - being so far ahead of the others - the school geniuses tended to become bored with the pace of things, and boredom breeds destruction. The Khan kid who was reading a book Lily hadn't gotten into until she was nearly fourteen looked to be wavering on that line already, and having a new place to explore before he was sent off to what he was told was an exceedingly prestigious muggle university at a very tender age would probably keep the child out of the sort of mischief that would bring him to the attention of the authorities.

Having a criminal record was detrimental for future employment. He should know, considering the fact that he'd spent a month in Azkaban during the Summer break after his fifth year after his parents had refused to pay the judge off the way Black's parents had after a certain incident that would never be spoken of again. That prison stay had killed off any and all dreams of being an Auror, and the job offers didn't exactly come pouring in during his seventh year despite the fact that he'd been made Head Boy because of it as well. He may have been good at Quidditch, but that wasn't what he wanted to do with his life. He probably would have played for one of the teams anyways to support his family if his parents hadn't provided him with enough money to fall back on though.

Fortunately, some good had come of his stint in Azkaban as he'd been forced to grow up a bit after having a month where there was nothing he could do aside from wallowing in despair in one of the prison's low security wings as he carefully re-examined his life. He hadn't fully stopped with the mischief, and he hadn't stopped pranking Snape, but he had put the brakes on things before he actually permanently injured or killed somebody as it was looking like he would have done had he not been forced to face the potential consequences of his actions. A side bonus of his somewhat more mature outlook on life and his marginally more mature actions had been that Lily had finally viewed him as a potential boyfriend and later husband. The relative security and increased employment prospects that came with marrying a pureblood had more to do with it than love when it came to why his ever-so-practical Lily had decided to marry him, but fortunately the love had come later.

As Lily went to get the car that they'd parked in the small lot that adjoined the clinic more for show than anything, he headed into a convenient alley, made sure that it was uninhabited, and Disapparated. One uncomfortable ride later, and he was standing outside Padfoot's cottage where the owner was racing around on the lawn chasing butterflies while Moony and Wormtail sat off to the side playing chess under the early Summer sun.

"Hey guys, guess what we're going to be doing until October..."


	3. Chapter 3

"So James, why are we doing this again? I mean the kid's like a total stranger, and it's not like you or Lily to bring in random strays, especially strays who already have somewhere to stay, no matter how amusing doing so might be." Sirius asked as he pulled pulled the portrait of his uncle Alphard off the wall in order to carry it into his room as he and the rest scurried to hide anything about the house that could be considered magical.

"Do you remember when we went to visit Lily during the Christmas break of our final year?" James asked, deciding to go with the most logical reason for the completely illogical snap decision that he and Lily had made since "It just seemed like the thing to do at the time" probably wouldn't quite cut it with the man whose home the kid was technically invading even if Sirius had said the house belonged to all of the Marauders and their families should they have them.

"Yes." Sirius replied frowning slightly, wondering what Christmas Dinner at the Evanses had to do with why James and Lily had decided to take in a random muggle boy who already had some place to stay without consulting him or the others, even if tricking the kid into thinking that they were ordinary run of the mill muggles sounded like it could be fun.

"Remember those family heirlooms that originally belonged to an ancestor of her mothers who'd been a missionary that she showed us?" James asked, clearly trying to get at something without officially acknowledging it by saying it aloud in case somebody who was listening might find some reason to object to what he wasn't saying.

"Yes." he said, slowly drawing the word out to two syllables wondering what a couple of still photos and bunch of dusty old muggle junk from India had to do with what James was getting at.

"Let's just say that if all else fails we can claim that Lily is related to that Patil berk." James replied.

Sirius probably would have made a comment about Lily's apparent ethnicity, but he'd remembered the stories about one or two pureblood families that had started off with permanent tans that had faded over the generations. Aside from the legend that Slytherin's ability to speak with snakes had come from an Egyptian ancestor who'd marched into Britain with the Romans, it was said that a sizable portion of the students and faculty of Hogwarts had had more of a er, Mediterranean cast to them back during the school's early days. Unfortunately, about the only things left of that period that had started a century or two after the school had been founded and ended a century or two after that was the odd crumbling tome that was written in either Hebrew or Arabic that one might accidentally find mouldering in one of the more isolated corners of the school library. Unlike in the muggle world where it was somewhat surprising that Lily's mixed ancestor had found an English spouse back during the Nineteenth century, purity of blood wasn't entirely tied to region of origin, though native born English tended to get more preferential treatment in Britain much the way native born French were better treated in France and so on and so forth.

"Nearly a billion people in India, and the first random Indian kid she runs into turns out to be a relative." Sirius muttered in awe of Lily's insane luck, the same insane luck that had led the woman to find a one-of-a-kind tome on sacrificial magic at a muggle estate sale last week, as he hung Alphard's picture on the far wall in his bedroom directly across from a cutout from a nudie magazine that gave the old man a coy smile as it moved into a rather seductive pose.

Normally, he wouldn't keep any portrait or other such painting with people in it in his room, but seeing as he likely wouldn't be having company anytime soon since there'd be a kid in the house it was reasonably safe to do so. So long as his dear old uncle didn't start giving him marital advice that was. Out of the Marauders, he was the only one who wasn't currently either married or dating. James was married, Remus was trying to get an annulment thanks to that incident in Vegas, and Peter was dating this shy little thing from the Longbottom side of the aisle that he'd met at his sister Alice's wedding.

* * *

Remus hummed to himself as he picked up the charmed lawn ornaments and started hauling them into the shed which he would be putting anti-muggle warding around when he was done. Having the Marauders together all under one roof was a bit trying at times, but there was often plenty going on to keep him distracted from _**THAT**_. Aside from their constant search for a cure, his parents had tried to treat him normally afterward, especially after Dumbledore had enrolled him into Hogwarts in order to see if having a Werewolf around could work out, but there was always a certain something in their eyes every time they looked at him.

Aside from Sirius who'd run away from home, all of their parents had needed a break, and they had needed a break from their parents, a break during which they could do crazy things like go to Las Vegas with fake IDs or bring muggles home without having their parents standing over them giving them _that look,_ that look he'd received from his parents who'd spent everything trying to find a cure for him when he'd announced that he'd won the equivalent of a thousand galleons, and then spent it all in an evening and woke up the next morning with a hangover and a wife.

He didn't entirely know why James and Lily had decided to bring a muggle home, nor did he care. As far as he was concerned, it was yet another distraction from the fact that James had been bankrolling him because he'd been unable to find work and his parents couldn't support him because they'd spent everything on him already, and the fact that the courts were stalling on his annulment despite the fact that both he and the soon to be ex-Mrs. both wanted it. And, as far as distractions went, it looked like it would be a thumping good one at that.

* * *

As Peter cleared the charmed knick-knacks out of the living-room, he tried to figure out how he was going to play this seeing as he was the least familiar with Muggle culture amongst the group. That was par for the course though. He was the weakest of the Marauders, and in comparison to the other three, he appeared positively stupid.

He wasn't stupid though, not by a long shot. While he wasn't Master material at any subject, he was competent enough in several fields. He was reasonably good at every subject he'd taken at school and a couple he hadn't, but his best two were Potions and Transfiguration. He was just barely good enough in Transfiguration to have mastered the Animagus spell despite it being beyond N.E.W.T, and if you set a potion recipe before him, he could brew it well enough that it would turn out right no matter how complicated it was.

This situation was outside his experience however, and - because of certain divided loyalties - exceedingly precarious to boot. If he tried to avoid the boy that two of his friends were bringing home with little to no advanced warning, his friends might start asking questions, and asking questions could lead to the discovery of a certain tattoo.

So far, the Dark Lord hadn't given him any major tasks or put him on any of the more important raids since he'd played up his inadequacies, fully taking advantage of the reputation for being useless that he'd somehow acquired back at Hogwarts. After that last bit of deliberate bumbling, he likely wouldn't be invited on any more muggle hunts either. His friends wouldn't see that however, all they would see was that he'd become a Death Eater, and that they'd been betrayed...

* * *

Khan suppressed a sigh as he watched the countryside pass by. Mrs. Potter had tried to engage him in conversation several times since they's left Dr. Parker's flat, and he'd rebuffed all attempts at conversation. It wasn't that Mrs. Potter was a particularly bad conversationalist for an ordinary human, nor did she speak down to him as many adults were wont to do with children no matter how intelligent or advanced they were, he just wasn't in the mood to speak.

Part of the reason he wasn't in the mood to speak was that he wanted to get his thoughts and feelings in order, especially that strange sense of abandonment he found himself feeling despite the fact that he'd pretty much despised Dr. Parker. The puzzle that was Lily Potter was another one of those things that he wanted to sort out, and quiet observation could probably net him more answers about her than whatever the woman could say.

Discovering that they were related however distantly was something of a surprise. He'd been aware of his lineage for a good long time, and the story of that relative of one of his mother's ancestors who'd gone and shamed the family by marrying an English missionary had been one of hundreds. Finding someone from the flip side of that story - someone whose family had been shamed because one of their ancestors who'd been the respected son of a minister had "gone native" - had been interesting.

Of course, considering how distantly the two of them were related, they were less family and more a minor footnote on each-other's family trees if they were even acknowledged at all...

The question was, did he even want to acknowledge the Potters as something more than a historical side note that was only tangentially related to him or not?

* * *

**Author's note to Nanashi and others who raised the point: **

When it came to almost feeding Snape to a transformed Remus, the Marauders got off pretty much scott free. It was because they got off scott free that James and Sirius - believing they could get away with anything - pulled a stunt that really crossed the line early in the Summer break following their fifth year. Following the incident, Sirius' parents bought his freedom and stepped up their poor treatment of him in an attempt to "reform" him resulting in his running away to live with the Potters, and James' decided to let the month in Azkaban stand in hopes that it might do some good as what James and Sirius had done had opened their eyes to what they'd let their son grow up to become by constantly indulging him.

As for the tech question, it does seem slightly complicated. About the only thing that was known to exist in Khan's 20th century that didn't exist in ours aside from Khan and his ilk themselves is the sleeper ships that were invented in the 90s. But, one would think that the technologies that were necessary to create them would result in a number of spinoff technologies that don't exist in our universe. Aside from the medical option of putting someone in stasis until a cure for whatever ailment they have can be found, I can't think of any.

As for my making Alice Longbottom Wormtail's sister: 1. Alice Longbottom's maiden name is never given. 2. It is noted in the books that Pettigrew bore a marked resemblance to Neville in his youth. and 3. Neville seemed to have inherited his bone structure and much of his looks from his mother if the books were to be believed.


	4. Chapter 4

The car was pulling up as James was removing the last of the muggle repelling spells, taking care to leave the rest of the home's wards intact. While strongly discouraged, it was somewhat safe to do on Padfoot's Godric's Hollow property as, unlike with some wizarding homes, people were aware that there was a house there, but were re-directed if they decided to drop by and bother the neighbors for whatever reason. By the time Lily and the Potters' new ward stepped out of the car and grabbed the boy's luggage from the back, the house appeared to be almost entirely muggle thanks to the Marauders' frenzied efforts to make it so.

After doing a last sweep of the lawn to make sure there weren't any stray objects or creatures that might cause problems, he went to join his wife in order to help carry the luggage inside. The boy Khan was examining his surroundings with interest, his dark eyes keenly taking in every detail.

"Well, let's go inside and meet the others." he said to the boy as he took one of the two small bags that contained all of Khan's worldly possessions which weren't books.

"I look forward to meeting them." the boy said with a too charming politeness.

This was far too familiar for his comfort. Aside from Peter who tended to play the bumbling fool to a point where none of them were sure where the faking ended and the real bumbling began, all of the Marauders had the use of weaponized charm down to an art. It was that charm that had reeled Dumbledore in, and convinced him that he and the others were just kids who'd just gone a little too far while having fun, and that they never ever meant to hurt anybody, leading them into feeling completely invulnerable since they practically had the headmaster in their pocket. It was that charm which had allowed the lot of them to practically get away with murder several times over before he and Sirius had pulled that stupid stunt in Diagon Alley which had led to their arrest and his incarceration.

He'd been a malicious little jerk when he was younger, and having been such he knew all the tricks. Knowing all of the tricks, he knew when someone was trying to pull one, such as the little brat he and his wife had decided to take home with them for everyone's safety was doing. The boy may be bright and clever, but he was still eleven.

"I'm sure you do." he replied as he led the way to the house which would be the boy's home until the end of September.

The look the boy gave him before following after told him that the boy knew he was onto him.

"Before we go inside, I'm going to lay some ground rules." he said as he stopped in front of the door and set his bag on the porch. "First, if we tell you to get inside, you get inside and don't ask questions. Second, no going into anyone's bedroom without permission. Third, no entering any locked rooms without permission. Fourthly, no pranking in the house, since we don't need another prank war on our hands. We're still finding traps in odd places from the last one."

"Is that all?" the boy asked when he paused.

"I'll tell you if I think up any more." he replied before opening the door and finding Sirius waiting on the other side.

"Is that him?" Sirius asked, a slight frown marring his handsome features which he'd used to charm the knickers off of dozens of girls and later women after he'd hit puberty.

"Something wrong Padfoot?" he asked.

"You expect them to be either chubby or scrawny at that age, heck, even I was a bit scrawny when I was his age, but he's..." Sirius started.

"A little too perfect?" he replied, having noted that about the child as well as his propensity for reading large books and that look of utter boredom and mischief restrained which had so reminded him of him.

"Yeah, I thought that was a bit odd as well." he continued, noting how the boy had stiffened slightly when he'd mentioned the fact that the kid looked a little too perfect for a normal human child.

"Whatever." Sirius said, deciding to let it go for now. "My name's Sirius Black, and welcome to my home."

* * *

Khan frowned as he followed the man who'd been named after the Dog Star into the house which apparently belonged to all of the "Marauders". Mrs. Potter had briefly explained it during the long drive to the small town in the West Country where she and her husband lived, and how she and her husband had moved in with her husband's school friends following graduation because they weren't ready to move back into the Potters' ancestral home which they would be sharing with James Potter's parents. He hadn't been sure what to expect when he got here, but being met with suspicion wasn't it.

Sure, he'd unnerved people before, people who were more perceptive than the norm who'd found him to be too handsome, too quick witted, too intelligent to be natural and became wary of him to some degree because of it. He'd thought that Potter had been one of the dull oblivious ones until he'd given him that look when he'd turned on the charm in hopes of putting the man off guard. Rather than smiling and commenting on how polite he was like most adults, the walls had come up, and the man had started watching him more closely. Potter's friend had been one of the immediately perceptive ones who'd noticed that there was something "off" about him, which made his welcome into the home all the more puzzling.

After following Black through several rooms, he'd found himself in the kitchen where a scarred and prematurely aged man who was most likely the same age as Potter and Black despite the silver strands in his brown hair was snacking with a chubby young man with ratlike features. When he entered the room a few paces behind Potter and Black, the scarred man gave the same frown that Black had, gave a sniff, and discreetly muttered the word "human" to Black who'd relaxed marginally at that statement. Following this odd display that he'd pretended not to notice, he was introduced to the scarred man who turned out to be named Remus and his companion who was named Peter and led off to a rather bland looking guest room which he was told would be his until he headed off to Oxford.

Something about his strange introduction to Godric's Hollow told him that it would take him more than the day or two he'd initially thought it would take in order to figure out the puzzle that was the Potters.

Sighing, he got to work putting his belongings away in the slightly battered second-hand dresser, taking care to look for the traps that Potter had mentioned might be lurking in unexpected corners of the home.


	5. Chapter 5

The hospital was just a hospital as far as he was concerned. It wasn't the hospital itself that caused the vague sense of unease as he traveled through its corridors, it was the medicinal smell and the underlying smell of cleansers which his nose which was more sensitive than an average human's nose picked up with amazing clarity. His earliest childhood memories had involved a large number of trips to medical facilities where he'd been poked and prodded by doctors and scientists who were still trying to figure out just what it was they had created.

He wasn't here to be looked at however, he was here for a different purpose entirely, a purpose which lay in the maternity ward.

"Come on!" Sirius said, impatient with the pace he had set as he all but ran down the hall.

Eventually, they reached the correct room. James Potter was standing by the bed, and on the bed with her bright red hair fanned out across the pillow was Lily Potter who was holding a small bundle which was wrapped in a blue blanket. Sirius ran up to the bed the instant he was in the room and all but snatched the small bundle out of its mother's arms, ignoring the glare that said mother had shot him. After fussing with the bundle for a while and loudly congratulating James, the man seemed to remember he was in the room and passed the baby to him.

Khan looked down at the small bundle which had just been placed in his arms. Over the past year and change, he'd become a member of a rather odd family, albeit one that was frequently away due to his studies at Oxford where he was making a number of potentially useful connections as well as being picked on for his age which was an average of seven years younger than that of his classmates. His first summer with Potter and his rather odd family had been interesting to say the least, especially after he'd figured out the Potters' secret and been sworn to secrecy since he was "family".

The peace of Godric's Hollow hadn't lasted to the end of the Summer. Of course, that peace had been mostly illusion, as all members of the household at the cottage at which he was staying were semi-active combatants in a secret war, but there had been one insult too many, and Black had lost a brother he claimed he didn't love, and all members of the home had shifted to full wartime footing aside from Lily who was trying to give James Potter an heir that he might've never lived to see.

His distant relative Lily had become pregnant following an in-vitro fertilisation in early November, and there had been a great deal of worry over whether or not the baby would survive until the middle of her second trimester. Part of that worry was due to the fact that the Potters had upset a very dangerous individual who was bent on world domination and going about it in the wrong way. The Potters' ancestral home had been targeted because of this, but fortunately the elder and rather elderly Potters had been away at the time. Unfortunately, the reason the elder Potters had been away from their now destroyed home had been because Mr. Potter had caught something called Spattergroit, and had passed in February. Mrs. Potter, having not lived without her husband in some capacity since they'd started Hogwarts, followed soon after despite the fact that her case which she'd caught from her husband hadn't been nearly as severe and had supposedly been caught in time.

James Potter, having lost his home and his parents was determined to be happy in spite of this. If he threw himself into battle against the megalomaniac who had named himself Voldemort's forces a little more recklessly than before, nobody commented on it. Just about everyone had lost someone, and the names of the lost were battle cries on the lips of the active combatants who were involved in the Order of the Phoenix. If he threw himself into play just as hard as he threw himself into combat, few commented, as many played in just such a way because they may never get the chance to do so later.

He himself, being a twelve year-old boy and a "Muggle" to boot was kept out of things, forced to lurk on the periphery of the sidelines and gather his information from whispers he overheard during his Christmas, Easter, and Long Vacations. The Potters had tried to return him to Dr. Parker because of the war on two occasions following the death of Lily Potter's mother who had kept him for a week after the Potters had gotten dragged into the fighting, but he had found his way back, and they decided to keep him close so he wouldn't be snatched up while he was crossing the country to reach them.

Even despite the fact that they were locked in hidden magical combat and tried to get rid of him for his own safety, the Potters were better company than Dr. Parker. They'd even accepted him for what he was rather than feared him like Parker did after they'd realized that he was far stronger, faster, and smarter than even most wizards who were usually stronger and faster and on rare occasions smarter than normal human beings. Of course, Potter also lectured him on the road he was supposedly going down, having supposedly been on it himself, which was annoying despite being done out of concern.

Now, there was a new Potter. A Potter who had been born very early yesterday morning after both Lily Potter and Alice Longbottom had rather unexpectedly gone into labor following an Order meeting despite the fact that they weren't due for at least another week. While Alice had gone to St. Mungo's, Lily had given birth to her son at a "Muggle" hospital because she couldn't be certain that there weren't any Death Eaters at St. Mungo's. James Potter was over the moon about the new baby, and he was somewhat curious about the child as well.

After having been passed to Sirius who was the baby's godfather, it had been passed to him. Having never handled a baby before, it was somewhat awkward. Little Harry was a small pink thing with a thatch of wild black hair on his head, and despite the fact that babies' eyes were normally blue, Harry's eyes were the same green as his mother's.

Not a good sign.

He'd seen baby photos of himself and a number of the other augments whom he kept in contact with despite the continent separating them, and one interesting feature he'd noted was that their final eye color had oddly been set at birth, quite likely due to the genetic tampering which had led to their creation. A creation which had gone unremarked because their creators had kept their heads down during the Brush wars and let the protesters like the ones in Santa Cruz back in '67 take all of the attention while they quietly used turned labs across the world to a task many of their colleagues would heartily disapprove of.

He should've known that Dr. Parker wouldn't have been able to resist tinkering, especially when he had such materials at hand. Of course, he could be mistaken, and it might be this mysterious magic thing he'd yet to find a full explanation for despite raiding the Oxford library and speaking to a number of the physics professors who dealt in the theoretical that had been responsible for Harry's eyes.

"Something wrong?" Lily asked, sounding concerned. More likely for the baby rather than him.

"No, just thinking." he replied as he handed the infant who could quite possibly be another one of his brothers to his mother.

"Don't worry. You're going to be a great older cousin." Lily replied. "And, Harry's going to be happy to have you around."

He smiled. He was certain of that. He never made the same mistake twice, and one thing he never screwed up with was family. Being the oldest, he was responsible for all of the others, the big brother as it were as well as the leader they looked up to. Whether or not Harry was one of his own kind, he was one of his, and would be treated accordingly.


	6. Chapter 6

"Tan!" Harry exclaimed, noticing he'd entered the room. In the boy's hands was the ceramic cat that had previously been on the mantlepiece. Summoned by the boy no doubt. Fortunately, it had been charmed to be unbreakable.

Magic was amazingly versatile, and its utilization was a skill he unfortunately did not possess, though not for a lack of trying. He'd adapted to it amazingly well despite the fact that it went against just about everything the science he'd been learning since he'd first learned how to read had said should be possible. Now, he could almost be mistaken for a magic user so long as he stayed away from certain creatures and locations.

His first experience with magic interestingly enough had been with a Jarvey...

_He'd been with the Potters for two weeks, and while he knew that something was up, he still hadn't figured out Potter or his friends. It was almost as if they belonged to some sort of secret society, but there seemed to be more to it than some school fraternity. The fact that he'd walked in on a number of quickly hushed conversations about a war had only added to the mystery since the Brush wars in Asia had ended a few years earlier, and aside from a few civil wars here and there there weren't really any real wars for them to be concerned with._

_Godric's Hollow was a mystery in itself. On the surface, it seemed to be a normal rural English village, but there seemed to be something that lay underneath. Twice, he'd decided to explore property belonging to Black's neighbors, and twice he'd found himself doing something else entirely. Once, he'd found himself in the library, and once in the pub where the laughing barkeep had asked if he'd tried to sneak onto the old Dumbledore property._

_Deciding to take a walk since it would help clear his head and give him time to think since getting out of the house meant that Lily wouldn't rope him into doing chores or helping her with the cooking, or Black wouldn't rope him in his ongoing prank war with Remus who seemed to be happy about something recently he headed out the door. _

_After walking down the road a ways, he'd decided to cut through a field that was located next to the Bagshot property._

_"Fucking carpet munchers!" he heard someone with a high squeaky voice exclaim._

_This was rather strange, because he could see nobody in the immediate vicinity. He wasn't prone to auditory hallucinations, but it would be just his luck for them to start now. There was no telling what sort of problems arose from being the result of being created by inferior beings who'd had little to no idea of exactly what they were doing._

_"Bloody fucking shit!" the voice which was to his right and somewhere in the vicinity of his feet said._

_Following this exclamation, there was a small high-pitched shriek which was suddenly cut off. Looking in that direction, he found an over-sized ferret chewing on a tiny man who'd had a lumpy misshapen head which resembled a potato. He'd heard rumors of the existence of faeries and the like, but every encounter he'd heard of had been debunked as a hoax. He was reasonably certain that this wasn't a hoax however, as he didn't know anyone who would create such a thing complete with blood and tiny entrails in the hopes that someone would come along._

_"What're you looking at cocksucker?" the faerie murdering ferret exclaimed upon spotting him after it had finished its meal._

_With a yell of "Paki!" the ferret turned and ran from him. It was fast. He was faster. The creature tried to struggle and had attempted to claw and bite him, but he'd had some experience with catching snakes during his early childhood, and had grabbed the animal in a way that made it nearly impossible for it to do so. Soon, the creature was wrapped in the light jacket he'd tied around his waist since the English summers were rather cool, and the weather rather fickle._

_A number of muffled curses and rude comments of all sorts came from the jacket which contained the struggling creature as he carried it home for further study, curious as to how the animal had gained the ability of speech when it should be impossible. _

_Perhaps it was its diet?_

_But that was ridiculous. Faeries didn't exist, and if by some means an undiscovered species of faerielike creature did exist, there was no way that it would actually be magical. What he'd seen was more than likely a new species of rodent which bore an unfortunate and uncanny resemblance to humans. Something like that would explain the whole faerie myth quite nicely and put all the old tales to rest once proper scientists got a chance to examine the creatures._

_Once he'd reached the Marauders' property, he'd found Potter and Black waiting for him with worried frowns on their faces._

_"You'd better get inside." Potter said, not noticing his bundle until it let out a particularly nasty swear._

_"Where the hell did he get a Jarvey?!" Black exclaimed, staring at his coat with a slightly incredulous expression._

_"Is that what it's called?" he asked, figuring that a local would be more familiar with the local wildlife than anyone else._

_"Yes, and I'd like it if you'd forget you'd found it. The Ministry would have our heads if they found out we'd let some muggle kid run around with a Jarvey in his jacket." Potter said, holding his hand out for the creature._

_"The Ministry?" he asked, curious about which ministry would hide the existence of talking animals._

_James Potter promptly got an "Oh crap, I've said too much!" expression on his face which further deepened the mystery which had come to include several things he'd thought impossible only hours before._

_"We really don't have time for this right now. Just hand over the Jarvey and head inside." Black said impatiently._

His second encounter with magic had led to a discussion he'd never forget. A discussion which had briefly turned his world upside-down until he'd slotted magic and the possibility that any number of legends were actually the truth into his world-view. It had been after he'd gone to bed that evening that an unsettling realization had hit.

It was quite possible that it had been magic that had killed his parents.

He didn't fear or hate magic because of this. Magic was simply a tool which could easily be misused in the wrong hands. The who and the why were far far more important than the how.

"Tan!" Harry yelled, trying to get his attention.

"Hey Harry," he said as he picked up the baby who was clutching the ceramic cat tightly, the baby who was starting to speak at about the same age as he and the others had.

"Let's put that back before your mother finds out you have it." he said as he very gently pulled the knick-knack from the eight month-old baby's grasp.


End file.
